Creating And Posting Articles

This is a brief primer on how to use the Last Movie Outpost WordPress editor. It is a mix of style and technical elements until a full style guide is complete.

Post Title

Post Titles should convey the gist of the article in a way that will get people to click on them. We’re are not doing clickbait but we are trying to gain an audience.

Uppercase every word in the title

i.e. How To Publish On Last Movie Outpost

ALL CAPS titles of movies, shows, books, games, franchises, etc in the title.

i.e. RAMBO: LAST BLOOD Trailer Traffics Heavy in Nostalgia

Use a Modifier for things like Reviews, Trailers, Previews, features like Behind The Scenes (“BTS”), etc.

Use a colon to separate what the article is from Descriptions.

Add Modifiers for the Modifier such as “New”, “Final”, etc.

i.e. THE SHINING BTS: Everyone Loses Their Mind At The Overlook Hotel

i.e. ENDGAME Final Trailer: Is This The End Of The MCU?

i.e. STAR TREK III Review: This Movie Was Not Very Good

Do not use quotes in the Post Titles unless the Title contains:

A direct quote from someone. Use double-quotes.

A phrase that needs to quote because it’s irony or something. Use double-quotes.

The name of an episode of a show. Use double-quotes.

Permalink

The Permalink is what we use to format the URL of the article. WordPress automatically generates a Permalink but they are often very long and clunky so you will probably want to edit it by clicking on the “Edit” button.

The Permalink should convey what the article is about but can be shortened.

i.e. “how-to-publish-on-last-movie-outpost” can be shortened to “how-to-publish”

i.e. “endgame-final-trailer-is-this-the-end-of-the-mcu” can be shorted to “endgame-final-trailer-is-end-of-mcu”

The Permalink should NEVER be generic such as “endgame-final-trailer” as two Authors may do an article on it.

DO NOT CHANGE THESE ONCE YOUR ARTICLE IS PUBLISHED LIVE TO THE SITE. IT WILL SCREW UP THE SPIDERING OF THE WEBSITE.

Featured Image

Every article on the site needs a Featured Image. It is used as the background for the article whenever it appears on the site.

When you find a Featured Image it should be interesting and evocative of the article.

Featured Images Dimensions

It should also be large and rectangular in dimension, about 1200px x 900px, 1200px x 600px, something like that.

If you have a larger image just reduce it with an online photo editor, a list of which you can find here:

Featured Image File Size

Additionally, the file size (KB) should be as small as possible without sacrificing image quality. This is critical as large file sizes contribute to a slow download time which Google will penalize us for.

Using The Editor Or Actually Writing Your Article

I suggest Grammarly and/or Jetpack. You will have to manage your own Jetpack settings inside your WordPress profile.

The Editor

The editor is pretty straightforward. You can open additional features that you might need by toggling the Toolbar Toggle button.

You will likely not need any of these features except Special Characters, Indent and Undo.

DO NOT CHANGE ANY COLORS OR FONT FACES. NONE.

Some Quick Style Pointers

Always put some text first. We don’t want images bumping up against the Featured Image.

Do not reuse the Featured Image.

Write your normal text in Paragraph.

Make titles of Franchises, Books, Movies, Bands, TV Shows, Video Games, etc Bold and Italic. Don’t treat the names of magazines, people or companies. Use single quotes for Episodes or Songs.

Keep your paragraphs short. People do not read at all these days. If you change an idea or a concept, make a new paragraph. If you want to make some impactful statement make a new paragraph.

Use Sub-Headers, like I am using in this article, for long posts. It helps break up the stream of text. It keeps people reading.

Uppercase all the words in a Sub-Header.

Learn to use The Header / Paragraph toggle. It at the top left of the editor. Sub-headers should be set to Heading 2. The regular text should be set to Paragraph. This will take a while to get used to as WordPress will mess with the formatting.TIP: If the Heading 2 format is selecting more than the text you intended, create more space around it, format your text correctly and then delete the space.

If you have Sub-Headers within your Heading 2 text blocks then use Heading 3.

Put the name of the actor playing a character in paraphrases after the characters name.

Tighten up all of your text. Remove any extra spacing between paragraphs, between Heading and paragraphs, paragraphs and images. This might take some time to get used to.

Do not use quotes in the article body unless it’s:

A direct quote from someone. Use double-quotes. If it’s an impactful statement, use the Blockquote feature.

A phrase that needs to be quoted because it’s irony, phrase or something. Use double-quotes.

The name of an episode of a show. Use double-quotes.

If you don’t see something here and way to know how it should be done go look and see how BMDdoes it.

Adding Single Images

OK, so this was not that straightforward at all.

The objective here is to post consistently-sized, high-quality, low-kilobyte images that do not require WordPress to resize them. Resizing leads to degradation of the image quality.

Right now the ideal dimensions for an article image is 690px by 345px. This gives a nice 2:1 aspect ratio for the visitor. Like the image below:

There are two ways to do this, either resize and reduce the file size as you would for the Featured Image or resize the image inside of WordPress.

If you resized and reduced your image using online tools then just:

Click the “Add Media”

Click “Upload Files”

Edit the ATTACHMENT DETAILS

Change the Title to something unique that will help tie the image to the article. i.e. “how-to-post-got-failure”. This will help us track and replace images.

Add a Caption that will display below the image

Add Alt-Text. This should be a description of what the image actually is.

Scroll down set the ATTACHMENT DISPLAY SETTINGS Size to Large (690×345)

Using Pull Quotes

“It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”

Categories and Tags

Categories

Right now Contributors can only select from existing Categories.

If applicable, select ONLY the lowest level Categories within a given Category tree

.i.e. If the article is about the Spider-Manmovie character only select “Spider-Man” within the Franchises > MCU > Spider-Man Category tree

i.e. If the article is about Spider-Man movie character only select “Comic Book” with the Genres > Comic Book Category tree

If applicable, select ALL the top-level childless Categories (Categories with no tree) that apply. i.e. If the article is a Review about the Spider-Man movie select both “Movies” and “Reviews”

Tags

Any contributor can add Tags. Just make sure there is not an existing tag already in the system.

Creating New Tags

Uppercase all words in the Tag.

Use full names of actors, character, titles, etc

Don’t create Tags that combine two concepts or two other tags.

i.e. “Star Wars” and “The Rise Of Skywalker” should be two separate tags.

Social Media Cards

Our WP is set up so that as soon as an article is published, the article instantly appears on LMO Twitter and Facebook so it’s imperative that social cards are completed, with a title, description, and an image –

Nobody should ever publish their own articles as there are 7 editors who can all proof-read and this way we can minimize errors.

The year is 2020. This is Last Movie Outpost, transmitting from the ends of the earth to anybody out there whose minds are still their own. Free thinkers, if there are any left out there in Wokeville, are welcome here.